


Cracks in a Heart of Stone (the Alex Remix)

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Human Trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex believes in surviving and taking care of herself, but sometimes she just can't avoid being drawn in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracks in a Heart of Stone (the Alex Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariadnes_string](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Silver-Tongued Conman Loses His Voice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/257522) by [ariadnes_string](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string). 



> Like the fic I'm remixing, this is gen, but it deals with human trafficking and sexual coercion of minors. So, while the story doesn't contain any archive warnings there are non-graphic references to underage, non-con and violence.

Alex didn’t know what Mozzie knew or how he knew, but the squirrelly son of a bitch sure looked like he knew something when he stood in front of her asking her to help the feds out with a case that involved trafficking of human cargo. Her stomach felt tight and cold at the thought but she just crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the side of the building where Mozzie had arranged their meet.

“Why can’t Neal handle it himself? I think I’m a little old to go in as bait.”

Mozzie muttered something that sounded like _never know_ , then sighed. “He’s sick as a dog.”

“He’s worked sick before.”

“Yeah, sure, but he’s got laryngitis.”

“That’s inconvenient.” _Damn it._ She didn’t want to say yes, but she couldn’t say no. “Fine. I’ll do it, but I reserve the right to back out if it’s a total fuck-up.”

“Obviously. Well, let’s go beard the suits in their den.”

***

An hour later, Alex stood in Peter Burke’s living room, trying to distract herself by casing the place, even if there wasn’t anything worth the effort. The house and furnishings were nice enough but pedestrian. Boring. What wasn’t boring was the case that Burke and his two underlings were laying out for her. The antiquities sounded high-end, the kind of goods that could be flipped for pure profit with relatively little risk. The rest of it was an echo of another lifetime, a lifetime when she’d been seventeen and stupid, when she’d learned what it was like to be touched by a man who thought he owned her.

Neal joined the rest of them, and he looked like hell—pale and pathetic and apparently determined not only to stay on his feet but to play a part in the plan to take down this asshole Giraldi. There was something in his eyes that said he had his own story she’d never heard, but they both knew they couldn’t let that get in the way. Alex’s sense of self-preservation told her to walk out the door while she still could, that taking on a man like Giraldi with a weak partner was the worst possible decision, and she’d never seen Neal weaker, slumped on the stairs like gravity had taken its toll after only a few minutes out of bed. When Alex had been the weak one, when she’d been bleeding from a bullet in her arm, Neal had seen her to the hospital then booked it right out of Copenhagen.

Before she could take a step toward the door that bastard Burke turned his laptop around and showed her a picture she didn’t need to see, a dead girl in a pool of blood, a used up doll that somebody had thrown away. Alex’s own story had ended a different way; there hadn’t been a dead body, but there had been plenty of blood and it hadn’t been hers. Alex knew it was probably a mistake, but she gave in. She agreed to help, and Neal hauled his sorry self up from the stairs to give her the run-down on the cover story he’d established. It was good; she hoped it would be good enough.

***

Alex didn’t believe in relying on technology to get a job done. She went to the meet with Giraldi with the dorky FBI spy pen tucked into her jacket, the same as Neal went in with the wired watch on his wrist, but she wasn’t counting on either toy to save her life if the job turned any more sour than it already was. When she saw Giraldi waiting for them with his greeting party of goons, she thought about aborting the job right there, _see you later_ , but she couldn’t do it. Neal knew she couldn’t do it, and the feverish gleam in his eyes only made the whole thing feel more inevitable.

She sat in the back seat of the town car, pressed between Neal and one of Giraldi’s men, and her arm was twitching, eager to elbow the goon right in the solar plexus. Instead, she tried to pass a signal to Neal, though she wasn’t sure how well he was tracking, given the damp, feverish heat radiating off of him. Before Alex could work out a plan to get out of the situation, they were transferred from the town car to a subcompact, and their spy toys were taken just before they were blind-folded and shoved into the much smaller back seat.

The closer confines of the car felt stuffy, especially with thick fabric tied over half of her face, and in the darkness Alex could hear Neal breathing beside her. Shaky inhales alternated with measured exhales, and Alex couldn’t help herself. She reached her hand across the few inches separating them and wrapped her fingers around Neal’s hot, sweaty hand. Half an hour later, when they were pulled out of the car and their blindfolds were removed, Neal swayed and blinked in the light, looking even sicker than he had before.

Two vans were parked nearby, and Alex could feel the wrongness coming off of them, off of the thugs standing guard. When Giraldi opened the doors, showing them the crowded hell of girls he thought he owned, Alex focused on keeping her face impassive, her breathing steady, her body as loose as possible instead of tense to flee. In her peripheral vision, she saw Neal balk, looking like he was about to throw up, and Alex thought she might be sick herself when she tuned in to what Giraldi was saying.

“Maybe she likes to watch? Or maybe—I’ve got it—you like to watch—watch some girl eat her out, watch her come. That would be my choice, I have to say.” Then he reached out and laid one of his vile fingers on Alex’s hair, trailing that touch down towards her breast, and she jerked away. _Never._

Neal, like the earnest idiot he could be at times, threw himself at Giraldi, snarling like an ancient dog. It was almost cute, the fact that Neal thought he was in any position to protect her, but Alex knew that the reality of the situation was very different. They’d been made, and her choice was to stick by Neal and go down with him or to push him away and try to swim on her own. It rankled, stepping over to Giraldi’s side and throwing Neal to the wolves, but she’d done worse to save herself, and there was nothing she could do to help anybody if she was trussed up in the back of a van.

Alex held her head up as she watched the goons manhandle Neal, and when the color washed out of his face and he passed out she tried to tell herself that at least he wouldn’t suffer more. At least not right away.

Back in the small car again, Alex sat next to Giraldi this time. It was pathetically easy to lift the phone from his pocket, and she held it at her side as she texted the location and plate number of the van that had taken Neal. When she saw the sign for a rest area approaching, she lifted his wallet then pleaded for the driver to pull over and let her use the restrooms. She flirted with Giraldi, promising that they could get friendlier there in the backseat once she had a chance to freshen up, and he bought the lie easily. He was used to dealing with girls and women who had no resources, no connections, deprived of food and hope; Alex had never been so glad to be underestimated.

One of the goons followed her to the squat brick building that held the restrooms, but she easily made her way out to the other side of the building. The cash in Giraldi’s wallet got her a ride in a delivery truck, and within a few minutes she was on the highway, headed back toward the city. Closing her eyes brought up images of those girls in the back of the van, and she didn’t want to imagine Neal thrown in with them, sick as he was. She kept her eyes open as the city drew nearer, and when she finally got to the apartment she was using she stripped down and showered off the stink of Giraldi and his goons and the taint of the past.

A couple of discreet calls got her the information she was hoping for—the feds had located the van that held Neal and the girls who had been Giraldi’s merchandise. Neal was in the hospital, but he would be okay; he always was. It was time for her to get out of town for a while, but she sent him a bouquet of irises surrounding a Danish Marguerite Daisy, a nod to Copenhagen that Neal would understand. A few more calls got her some information on the girls and the one boy who had been held by Giraldi. They would be given asylum to stay in the country, but they had a lot ahead of them, learning to survive in a world that wouldn’t do much to help them.

She thought about finding them, seeing what she could do. It was a ridiculous notion; Alex was nobody’s hero, and the only person she knew how to save was herself. Still, she closed her eyes and saw that image Burke had shown her on his laptop, the dead girl in nothing but a pair of delicate pink panties. She thought about the bodies she’d glimpsed in the vans, slender, naked limbs, haunted eyes. She thought about herself, stupid and young and alone, but at least speaking the language. She shook her head, but she pulled up a map of where the freed captives were being held for treatment.

She would visit, slip inside and take a look at the situation. She didn’t have to do anything more than that, not necessarily. But maybe. Maybe she would.


End file.
